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Thursday, March 2, 2017

Herbalife Ltd, a US-based firm that
sells weight-loss shakes and nutritional supplements, announced the opening of
its first research and development (R&D) centre in India in Bengaluru in partnership with Biocon Ltd’s research services arm Syngene
International Ltd. The new centre will house a group of Syngene scientists who will
work closely with Herbalife on product development, sensory evaluation and
testing among other services.

The 3,000 sq ft facility is located inside
Bengaluru-based Syngene’s campus and is Herbalife’s fourth such lab worldwide.
Its new lab in the city will house a group of Syngene scientists who will work
closely with Herbalife on product development, sensory evaluation and testing
and scientific content writing among other services.

The nutrition R&Dlab will house a group of Syngene scientists that will work for Herbalife Nutritionon various research and development projects. Herbalifewill work closely with Syngenein the areas of R&Din the field of nutrition- including product development, sensory
evaluation and testing, scientific content writing pertaining to nutritional
products and supplements, project management, formulation development,
analytical service, stability study and other related services - and ensure
that the right systems and processes are followed to deliver nutritionproducts for HerbalifeIndia.

Dr Manoj Nerurkar, chief operating officer,SyngeneInternational Ltd, added, “This is our fifth
dedicated centre and second fornutritionresearch. We see this partnership as an
endorsement of Syngene’s scientific capabilities to deliver innovative
solutions across a wide industry segment and look forward to working closely
withHerbalifeNutritionto support theirR&Drequirements.”

“At Syngene, we are committed to
developing products that enable people to lead healthier lives. We see many
synergies in this association and feel it is natural for us to partner with
Herbalife Nutrition to help them in their quest of advancing better nutrition,” said Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, managing director and chairperson of Biocon.

Syngene has set up similar
exclusive R&D centres for other global biotechnology firms in the past,
including Amgen Inc, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Abbott Nutrition and Baxter Inc.

“I think when we look at these we
need to basically cater to a prospect of expansion,” Mazumdar-Shaw said when
asked why Syngene was partnering with Herbalife to set up an exclusive R&D
centre. The partnerships are decided based on understanding where the
capabilities and expertise are and not by a bidding process, said Manoj
Nerurkar chief operating officer of Syngene.

India is among the top five markets
for Herbalife, which has for long been at the heart of a battle between US
activist investors Bill Ackman and Carl Icahn, with Ackman saying the company
is an illegal pyramid scheme guised as a multi-level marketing firm and Icahn
challenging his claim.

When asked on a question on the numerous lawsuits and complaints filed against the parent company in regards to side effects on using some of the Herbalife products, Ajay Khanna, vice president and country head of Herbalife International India Pvt Ltd said, "we have just began our partnership with Syngene and in the next few months bring out products made for the Indian market. The lawsuits and complaints filed were against the parent firm and no such problems have been witnessed in India so far".The nutraceutical market in India
is poised for tremendous growth. Currently the market is about Rs 2.2 billion
(Rs 220 crore) and is expected to grow to Rs 6.2 billion by 2020. This is a
further commitment to the consumers in India to have the R&D lab so
that we can bring products from our global portfolio much faster into the
country,” said Khanna.

Khanna said a substantial
amount of investment had gone into setting up the facility in Bengaluru, however did not divulge on the actual amount invested in the facility.

Reinforcing its vision to be a leading consumer electronics
company, Micromax Informatics, India’s leading mobile brand, today introduced a
new range of Air conditioners, to strengthen its presence in the AC market.
This will be the first year to see a complete line-up of ACs from Micromax,
after it successfully introduced ACs as a pilot project last year in June 2016.
The range comprises of 07 split ACs and 01 Window AC right at the onset of the
peak summer season in India.

To begin with, the focus markets will be the top 10 states
(Punjab, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Delhi, Rajasthan,
West Bengal, Telangana and Tamil Nadu) where Micromax has established a strong
distribution with over 4000 sales touch points and backed it up with 400+
service centres to ensure strong after sales service support. In addition to
the traditional retail touch points, the products will also be made available
through leading E-commerce websites, in the months to come.

Commenting on the launch, Rohan Agarwal, Vice President,
Consumer Electronics, Micromax Informatics Ltd. said, “We are bullish on
the Indian air conditioner market and have invested heavily in building a
strong product portfolio, a robust distribution network to ensure wide presence
and best-in-class service experience. Being a dominant consumer
electronics player, Micromax enjoys a strong brand equity and our success in
these segments has given us the confidence to foray into a new product
category. The key differentiators for our ACs is the local innovation that we
have built as per consumer feedback (100% copper two-way drainage, turbo
cooling etc.), along with the right implementation. We believe that as a brand
we are very well entrenched to grow this category.”

He further added, “At Micromax, we realize that service is of
utmost importance in order to connect with the last mile. We are introducing
the Micromax Home Assist application for our AC and TV consumers to
help facilitate, raising any enquiry or complaints with utmost ease and faster
redressal. We want to replicate the same success that we have witnessed in the
LED TVs segment and achieve a double digit market share over the next 3 years
in AC segment as well.”

LendIt, the world’s largest
Fintech conference-recently announced - that they have selected Capital Float as a
finalist in the Emerging Small Business Lending Platform category.
Capital Float is India’s leading digital lending platform to SMEs. The Emerging
Small Business Lending Platform finalists were chosen on their
capability to demonstrate the greatest potential to impact the future of small
business lending in the world. Capital Float is the only Asian
representative in the category.

Capital Float was nominated as a
finalist out of hundreds of applicants worldwide and by more than 30 industry experts
who judged finalists representing innovation, emerging talent
and top performers. Capital Float will compete for top
honors within its award category at The LendIt Awards Ceremony on March 7 at
the LendIt conference in New York City.

“Having been on the front lines of
emerging and later stage Fintech companies for the past five years, we wanted
to unveil our own best of the best industry accolades,” said Jason Jones,
Co-Founder, LendIt. “We were positively overwhelmed with the high number and
high caliber of entrees. These finalists represent some of the most innovative
companies that are radically improving financial services through technology.”

“We are thrilled to be shortlisted
for the LendIt Awards. This nomination is another feather in our cap of being
the leading digital lending platform in India. LendIt offers a great platform for
us to showcase our disruptive products to more than 5000 of our industry peers
spanning across 40 countries,” said Gaurav Hinduja, Co-founder and MD, Capital
Float. “We are proud to represent India at such a prestigious forum. This
further boosts our confidence to continue innovating and serving the SME
market,” he adds.

Aeries Financial Technologies Pvt. Ltd., a fin-tech company
promoted by serial entrepreneur and private equity investor V. Raman Kumar,
today announced that CASHe, India’s fastest loan giving app for young salaried
professionals is now disbursing loans well over 1 Crore per day in less than a
year of operations. CASHe now processes an average of 450 loan applications per
day for young salaried professionals. CASHe is now India’s leading and most
preferred fintech company in the personal lending space.

Launched in April 2016, CASHe offers loans based on a
combination of Big Data Analytics and proprietary Artificial Intelligence based
algorithm, the Social Loan Quotient, which enables loan disbursal within 8
minutes.

“We have seen a fantastic response to our loan products with a
month-on-month 45% growth in customer base and 60% growth in disbursal value in
the past few months,” said V. Raman Kumar, Chairman, Aeries Financial
Technologies Pvt. Ltd. “Our loan disbursements now stand at 1 crore per day and
we have achieved a significant
milestone of processing over 450 loan applications on a daily average – all
this within a year of setting up our operations. We are now well set to
disburse loans worth 30 crores for March 2017. CASHe has embarked on a
tremendous growth trajectory to achieve a loan disbursement value of Rs 100
crore for the month of December 2017. We have leveraged innovative technology
along with our proprietary Artificial Intelligence based algorithm platform,
the Social Loan Quotient, to make loan disbursal hassle free for our customers,
leading to over 70 percent of them returning for fresh loans.” he added.

CASHe provides hassle-free loans with its app enabled
documentation and loan disbursal/repayment process. Powered by its
industry-first algorithm driven credit scoring platform, The Social Loan
Quotient (SLQ), CASHe quickly determines a user’s credit worthiness by using
multiple unique data points to arrive at a distinct credit profile of the
customer. SLQ is transforming the traditional credit rating measurements
thereby providing immediate loans to the under-served young professionals who
are kept out by traditional credit rating and banking systems. CASHe is
completely automated and requires no personal intervention and no physical
documentation. The average time taken for a loan to be disbursed is about 8
minutes, subject to proper submission of all documents.

Amidst increasing digital payments push and awareness amongst
consumers, FreeCharge has announced that it is witnessing a major chunk of its
transactions coming through online partners. Nearly 20% of the wallet
transactions happening on the platform are on either one of the online merchant
partners. This is closely followed by offline partnerships wherein Fuel and
Food are the top 2 categories driving adoption and transaction.

In the offline space, fuel refilling and dine-out or food orders
are driving growth for the firm. On a percentage basis, Fuel right now
comprises 39% of the daily offline merchant transactions while the same figure
for the food category stands at 29%. This is basis the fact that both these
categories drive high repeat usage on the part of the customer and builds the
digital transaction habit for the consumers.

FreeCharge had recently announced its plan of on-boarding 1
million merchants in the next 12 months already has a lot of online partners
and will increasingly focus on offline space to meet the target. The company
has already on boarded nearly 18,000 petrol pumps in the top 20 cities for
example and plans to cover petrol pumps associated with HPCL, IOCL and BPCL pan
India in a period of 2 months.

With an increasing focus on the less cash economy, FreeCharge is
increasingly focusing on both online and offline partnerships to enhance its
digital footprint in the payment space. Few of the prominent online merchants
for the wallet firm include irctc, foodpanda, swiggy, bookymyshow, redbus,
zomato amongst many others. In the offline space the prominent partners include
McDonalds (West and South), Pantaloons, Shoppers Stop, Café Coffee day,
Barista, Heritage Fresh and many others.

Speaking on the development, Sudeep Tandon, Chief
Business Officer - FreeCharge said, “Partnerships with varied offline
and online merchants form the bedrock of FreeCharge acceptance in the payments
landscape. FreeCharge has witnessed a great response from the tech savvy online
consumer base in terms of adoption and repeat usage. With the increased push on
digital economy, we have recently seen the same happening in the offline space
as well, which is a very promising trend for us. Our teams are working towards
the goal of making FreeCharge the default payment app on the consumer's home
screen and we wish to achieve this very soon.”

Snapdeal, India’s largest online
marketplace, has partnered with Truecaller, one of the leading communication
apps in the world to enhance consumer experience by integrating Truecaller
Priority in the company’s IVR and order confirmation numbers. Customers with
Truecaller app installed on their mobiles will be able to easily identify and
filter IVR or delivery verification calls when shopping on Snapdeal.

Any calls received by users who have
placed an order on Snapdeal, while be clearly marked as ‘Snapdeal Order Team’
or ‘Snapdeal Delivery Team’, and color coded in purple; thus, assuring the
users that the call is important and from a reliable source, not spam.

Jayant Sood, Chief
Customer Experience Officer, at Snapdeal said, “We are
very pleased to bring the Truecaller Priority feature to our platform. It will
help reduce a key friction point in the delivery process; ensuring that our
customers don’t miss out on any important calls from Snapdeal, and also
increase the daily rate of deliveries for us by increasing the call completion
rate.”

Besides boosting customer satisfaction
and ensuring that customers are always in the know about the status of their
product, this feature will also reduce the rate of “no response” calls for
Snapdeal.

“We constantly strive
to enhance the user experience through safe and efficient products. With
Truecaller Priority, Snapdeal ensures enhanced efficiency in its user
communications while users get to know that call is critical and for relevant
reasons. We are confident that such seamless experience will add immense value
to both sides” said Arun Krishnan, Director,
Strategic Partnerships at Truecaller.

Wednesday, March 1, 2017

Honeywell has announced
the winners of the fourth edition of India Aerospace Design Challenge, the
annual competition sponsored by Honeywell to attract and develop talent in
India for its growing Aerospace industry. The company announced the winners on
India’s National Science Day, celebrated each year to mark the discovery of the
Raman effect by Indian physicist and Nobel Laureate Sir Chandrashekhara Venkata
Raman on February 28, 1930.

The 2017 Honeywell India
Aerospace Design Challenge drew the participation of 239 students from 19
design institutes across India. The students were charged with designing a
user-friendly, enhanced situational awareness solution for Aerospace
communication, navigation and surveillance. Akhil Patel and Harmeet
Singh from the Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati, and Harshika
Jain and Salil Parekh from the National Institute of
Design, Ahmedabad, were announced winners of this year’s contest at the award
ceremony held at the Honeywell campus in Bangalore.

“I’m delighted to meet
the brilliant design students at the Aerospace Design Challenge 2017. They are
India’s future for building human-centered software industrial solutions for
our country,” said Dr. Akshay Bellare, vice president and general
manager of Honeywell Technology Solutions, India, Honeywell’s technology
development and engineering arm. “As Honeywell transforms into a software
industrial company with about half of its 23,000 global engineers working on
software, we know that digital and physical solutions will become more and more
connected to change the way we live and work. Domain knowledge will become very
important, and we’re committed to nurturing Indian engineering talent and
building Make in India solutions to support rapid growth in the country.”

“I’m very excited about
winning the Honeywell’s fourth Aerospace Design Challenge,” Akhil Patel said at
the award ceremony. “Moreover, it is a great opportunity for students
like us to showcase our design capability and how our designs can help improve
existing processes and create solutions to tackle present-day challenges in
India.”

Started in 2014, the
Honeywell India Aerospace Design Challenge is an annual contest for college
students to design innovative solutions addressing specific needs of the Indian
aviation industry. More than 650 students from 20 institutes in both aviation
and design fields have participated in the yearly
competition.

To commemorate
National Science Day, Agastya International Foundation organized a three-day
mega science fair at Government Model Higher Primary (GMHP) School, Jakkur
Village in Bengaluru from February 26 – 28, 2017. The students from GMHP School
displayed science models to explain complex scientific concepts through simple
experiments – learnt as part of the Honeywell Science Experience program at the
school.

Through its uniquely scalable,
hands-on teaching-learning method, the program aims to foster child and teacher
participation in experiential learning, and boost science education. To promote
science education among other children, the students from GMHP School
demonstrated close to 100 scientific phenomena, including solar and lunar
eclipse, seasonal changes, and concepts such as pressure and volume
relationship, and the formation of insulin with protein chains, at the mega
science fair. More than 3,000 children, including students from nearby schools,
attended the science fair and experienced the Honeywell Science Experience
center and mobile science lab at the school.

“Peer-to-peer
learning instills confidence, improves communication, and helps students
understand complex scientific methods in a more agile way. As we run one of the
largest hands-on science education programs for economically disadvantaged students,
it becomes crucial for us to introduce unique ways to nurture creativity and
boost confidence. We hope that peer-to-peer teachers will catalyze a movement
across India.” said, Ramji Raghavan, Founder and Chairman, Agastya.
“Support from partners like Honeywell India will continue to be critical to
foster a new generation of science professionals in the country,” he explained.

Munirajappa, school principal, said, “I have seen tremendous change
in the way students collaborate and learn at the science center. I think it
fills a critical gap in our infrastructure and provides a great platform for
students who want to acquire an in-depth understanding of science.”

Vikas Chadha, President, Honeywell India, said, “The Honeywell
Science Experience not only enables students to understand complex scientific
concepts, but helps them realize their natural potential for learning and
prepares them for leadership and proactive community engagement.” He explained,
“Being one of the world’s leading technology companies, Honeywell understands
the importance of STEM education and its impact on the global economy.”

Launched in August 2016, the Honeywell
Science Experience reaches more than 48,000 students and 600 teachers in
Gurgaon, Delhi, and Bangalore through 11 unique experiential science centres,
10 mobile labs, and 1,100 student mentors.

Shire plc has announced the launch of
“Rare Count” in honor of Rare Disease Day and the 350 million people worldwide
living with rare diseases, which equates to nearly one in 20 global citizens.1It is estimated that 50% of rare
diseases begin in childhood.The
campaign, open for all to participate atwww.shire.com/RareCount, highlights the
under-recognized prevalence of rare diseases.

Speaking on the launch of the campaign on World Rare
Disease Day, Vineet Singhal,Country Head, Baxalta Bioscience
India Pvt. Ltd (now part of Shire) said, “Awareness about Rare Diseases in
India is very minimal and there is a dire need to create awareness on the
importance of timely and appropriate diagnosis that can help make difference in
the lives of patients suffering from rare diseases. The Rare Count campaign in
India and Globally will aim to reach out to such patients through social media
platforms. As 66% of the 180 million Internet users in urban India regularly
access social media platforms, we strongly feel this campaign will help in
reaching out to rare disease patients. At Shire we are committed to these
patients and put their wellness first.”

The Rare Count campaign applies the “one in 20” rare
disease statistic to calculate the potential number of contacts in a user’s
social network who could be living with a rare disease. The shareable
result represents the user’s “Rare Count” and underscores the potential
personal impact of rare diseases. Anyone can go towww.shire.com/RareCountto calculate and share their
individualized Rare Count through Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. For every
person who participates, Shire will contribute $1, up to $10,000 to each of the
following umbrella patient advocacy groups focused on rare diseases: National
Organization for Rare Disorders, Global Genes and EURORDIS (Rare Diseases
Europe).

“At Shire, we believe that that every patient counts,
no matter how rare the condition, and we are focused on championing for people
living with rare diseases to ensure their distinct unmet needs are met,” said
Philip J. Vickers, Ph.D., Global Head of Research and Development at
Shire. “Correct and timely diagnoses remain key challenges in the rare
disease community. Our commitment extends beyond our innovative drug pipeline
to our unwavering efforts to increase rare disease awareness with the goal of
improving the diagnosis pathway for rare disease patients.”

Today, there are about 7,000 known rare diseases.1While rare disease communities are
small, the overall prevalence of rare diseases may be higher than the public
recognizes. Since low awareness can contribute to the ongoing challenges facing
people living with rare diseases, public education is critical. Shire is timing
The Rare Count campaign to coincide with Rare Disease Day, an annual awareness
day focused on educating the public about rare diseases and their associated
challenges.

In addition to the Rare Count campaign, Shire
employees at sites around the world are honoring people living with rare
diseases by leading or participating in awareness-raising activities.

“Rare Count”

Shire’s Rare Count campaign underscores Shire’s
commitment to raising awareness of rare diseases. The campaign uses a social
media calculator to apply the “one in 20” rare disease statistic to a user’s
personal network, thereby estimating the potential number of contacts in their
network who could be living with a rare disease. The calculator and results can
be shared via Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. The landing page also includes
options to customize results by country. The personalized, shareable result
represents the user’s “Rare Count.”

VMware, Inc., a global leader in cloud infrastructure
and business mobility, today announced key findings from a VMware-commissioned
study that identifies key CIO priorities in India for the next three years.
Conducted by Kantar IMRB, the study suggests how IT/ Data security is a key
challenge organizations face in the mobile cloud era and how most organizations
surveyed are keen to adopt cloud computing to enhance business agility and
efficiency – hence information security and cloud services will have maximum
impact on businesses in the next 3-5 years.

As per the research findings, even though organizations are
progressively looking for a modern business environment, they are concerned
about having a proper security environment in place owing to the open nature of
the Internet and increasing cyber threats. 86 percent of organizations see
their IT budget increasing over the next 3 years and 80 percent of businesses
are willing to invest time, money and skill on cloud services.

The study surveyed IT leaders and decision makers from a number
of Indian companies across various verticals, ranging from medium-sized
enterprises to very large organizations. Each respondent was interviewed via a
structured questionnaire on their business and IT priorities for their
organizations in the next three years, including:

·What they would like to see from IT vendors

·The role of cloud computing in their
businesses

·Their outlook on their organization’s IT
budget spend

Key insights:

·Companies are willing to invest time, money
and skills on cloud services and currently the adoption of the public cloud is
high compared to that of private/hybrid cloud. Only basic data such as emails,
messaging services, CRM are stored on the public cloud owing to data security
concerns

oStudy findings reveal
that very large enterprises (80 percent), large enterprises (83 percent) and
medium enterprises (82 percent) are likely to invest in private cloud.
Likewise, a high majority of them are also keen to invest in public and hybrid
cloud.

o

oWhile
business and performance is a key priority, the study indicates IT security is
now a major concern and has gone up the business priorities list

o87 percent of
respondents in the IT/ ITeS/ Telecom sector; 55 percent of respondents in the
manufacturing sector; 64 percent in banking, financial services and insurance
(BFSI); 53 percent in government/public sector/defence; and 65 percent from
other services agree IT security is amongst the top business priorities.

o

·Apart from CIO’s focus on IT operational
efficiency and improvement of IT agility, managing security and compliance risk
is gaining prominence as a top IT priority for companies

o61 percent of
respondents from BFSI and 57 percent of respondents from IT/ ITeS/ Telecom rank
managing security and compliance high owing to the nature of their business.

•Despite increase in IT budgets in very large
enterprises, CIOs are unhappy as the budget is either insufficient nor aligned
properly

oFindings also indicate that respondents from
the government (70 percent) and BFSI (67 percent) feel that budget for security
should increase by 25 percent over the next year.

·Losing customers’ trust and public disclosure
of sensitive data are considered as main concerns by organization

o87 percent of
organizations’ security team want to have business data safe from breaches and
secure against cyber-attacks

oOrganizations are
extensively looking at new technology trends like anytime, anywhere any device
access to business applications, enterprise mobility etc., to provide greater
work flexibility to their employees

“With nearly 25 percent of all IT workloads being managed in the
cloud today, and the number expected to double by 2021, it is evident that the traditional
on-premises IT environment is undergoing a profound change. Today, CIOs play an
extremely essential role in their organization’s IT, and it is of utmost
importance to have enterprise data available always – anytime and anywhere
while tightly secured,” said Arun Parameswaran, managing director,
VMware India. “This study brings to light what CIOs should look out for in the
next three years where new security approaches are needed as data
center infrastructures increasingly move to the cloud.”

The survey was conducted from May to June 2016 across five
industry verticals including Manufacturing, Banking and FSI, Government/
PSU / Defense, IT/ ITeS/ Telecom and Other
services (Media, Healthcare, Retail & other Professional Services) covering
Pan-India locations. Inputs were gathered from over 150 respondents across a
variety of companies ranging from medium-sized to very large organizations. All
respondents surveyed were IT leaders and decision makers in their respective
organizations with designations that included CIO or an IT Head.

Each respondent was interviewed via a structured questionnaire
on their business and IT priorities for their organizations in the next three
years, including:

ACT Fibernet, India’s largest non-telco
ISP and 3rd largest ISP (internet service provider), has announced upgradation
of its existing internet plans for customers in the city of Hyderabad.

At a similar upgrade in October 2016,
ACT Fibernet had increased its entry level plan A-Max 410 from 1 Mbps to 2 mbps
and is now taking it to a new level of 5 mbps with an exceptional download and
upload limits of 60 GB each, making it the only internet package in the market
to be offered at such a phenomenal value.

Likewise, A-Max 650 has
been upgraded to 25Mbps versus its previous offerings of
10Mbps with new upload and download FUP of 100 GB at no extra costs. A-Max
1050 is being upgraded to 60 Mbps from speeds of 40Mbps
with new upload and download FUP of 200 GB again at no extra costs.

With over 70 per cent market share in
Hyderabad, ACT Fibernet is Hyderabad’s largest and favoured internet service
provider that bring the best internet plans coupled with incredible speed and
reliability to its customers. The new offerings will enable access to high
speed and uninterrupted internet services to meet entertainment, business and
utility services requirements.

Speaking on the newly introduced plans,
Bala Malladi, CEO, Atria Convergence Technologies Pvt Ltd commented, “In
Line with our philosophy of offering exceptional speeds and download limits
that empower our customers – we are upgrading our plans to offer the best
speeds and FUP limits at exceptional value to our customers. With the ultimate
objective of liberating our customers from speed and data inhibitions, our new
plans will open a whole new world of possibilities such as HD and 4K movie
downloads.“

Ducati Corse, the
racing department of Ducati Motor Holding, a world leader in sports motorcycle
manufacturing, is working with Accenture to integrate Internet of
Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence technologies into the testing of its
MotoGP racing bikes.

Ducati Corse wants to
make testing its race bikes faster, cheaper and more effective. Accenture
Analytics, already Official Digital
Partner to the Ducati
Team racing in the MotoGP World Championship, has lately been working with them
to create an intelligent testing approach with a bespoke analytics engine.
Integrated Machine Learning technologies mean that the more data that enters
the system, the more configurations are available for testing with increasingly
accurate performance predictions. Data visualization tools designed for an
intuitive user experience will allow testing engineers to interact with
insights, tweaking them at any point to create a new perspective on
configurations and race times. This will provide more results from fewer
on-track testing sessions, saving the time, money and effort previously
required for testing, and creating bikes that become smarter with every test
run.

“There are 18 MotoGP
tracks, and to make sure our bikes perform to their limit, we need to test as
many configurations and scenarios as possible,” said Luigi Dall’Igna,
Ducati Corse General Manager. “So far, we’ve seen excellent results in the
lab with the Accenture solution. The ability to use existing and new testing
data will help us choose the optimal configuration for our bikes. This
innovative tool will make our testing a more intelligent process, helping us
get the best performance from our bikes, whatever the weather or the track.”

Using data from up to
100 IoT sensors on the bikes and existing testing data, the Accenture solution
will allow team engineers to create new perspectives by simulating and
assessing bike performance under a range of conditions. By applying advanced
analytics and machine learning techniques, simulated results based on data from
previous tests run on real-world tracks will allow engineers to learn from and
act on the data to optimize bike configurations for any MotoGP race. All of
this intelligence is delivered at new speeds through an intuitive dashboard,
enabling new dialogues and collaboration across the team. More potential
configurations than ever before can then be tested, maximizing the benefits of
on-track testing and gaining competitive advantage for race day.

“With this solution,
Ducati Corse can operate an intelligent testing program to help deliver better
race results,” said Marco Vernocchi, EALA Lead of Accenture Analytics,
part of Accenture Digital. “By simulating and monitoring a motorbike’s
performance under a vast array of track and weather conditions, we’ve been able
to apply machine learning integrated with IoT sensor data, to help minimize the
time, expense and effort of traditional on-track testing. Ultimately, we hope
this innovative solution will help the Ducati Team stay ahead in every race
they compete in.”

To date, around 4,000
sectors of race tracks and more than 30 different racing scenarios have been
analysed, with a wider roll-out of the solution expected. In testing, data such
as engine running parameters, speed, revs and tyre and brake temperatures are
collected, and the Ducati Team will use this to plan, prepare and test for
MotoGP races.

Marcello Tamietti,
Connected Transport lead in Accenture Digital’s IoT practice, noted: “Early
results of this solution are extremely promising. The power of collating data
from the bikes and earlier races allows us to compute several potential
outcomes per setting, starting a new dialogue about how to get the smartest,
fastest bike on the track. Test engineers can use real insight to alter bike
configurations according to conditions, which could transform the way the
Ducati Team operates its entire testing apparatus, adding new value to
on-track, intelligent testing.”

Seclore, the leader in
Enterprise Rights Management (ERM),has announced the latest release of its flagship
data-centric security solution. Newcapabilities offered provide a more seamless
experience for both the sender andrecipient.

The
most impactful update in the new release is the ability to edit protecteddocuments natively in Mac. Seclore for Mac 2.0
packs in powerful new features which makethe enterprise even more secure and compliant –
while reducing the burden on both IT andend users.TheskyrocketingnumberofenterpriseMacusersarenowempoweredwiththesamelevel of data-centric security as their
Windowscounterparts.

“Existing Seclore users
that use the Mac platform will now be empowered to do muchmore than just apply rights and view protected
files. They can now open, edit, save, andprint protected Office documents in their native
Office 2016 apps running on Mac,” statedAbhijit Tannu, CTO at Seclore. “Our
goal with this release is to decrease end user frictionand increase adoption by enabling users to leverage
the entire universe of features providedby Office when working with their protected files
on Macdevices.

Additional features in the latest version of Seclore Enterprise
Rights Management,include:

· Gain access through Google
account- Further expanding on
Seclore’sidentity federation, users can
now login into Seclore automatically through theirGoogle account making access to protected
documents evenfaster

· Auto-discovery of
permissions- Email auto-forwarding
capabilities enable the‘auto- discovery’ of those who
need access to protected content, eliminating the needto manually grant permissions to users. Forwarding
a protected email automatically transfers access permissions to all new
recipients, making ad hoc use ofrights management while emailing a breeze. Through
this feature, unregisteredrecipients are registered automatically, eliminating
the need for manual registration.

“Our
newest features form an integral part of Seclore’s vision of providing easilyadoptable data-centric security solutions to
organizations,” said Vishal Gupta, CEO at Seclore. “Witha relentless focus on reducing friction at both the
sender and receipt stages of therights management process, Seclore is leading the
way in closing the remaining security gapsin organizations’ IT ecosystems.”

Persistent
Systemshas announced
an agreement with USAA for development rights to a number of patented
innovations currently in use by USAA related to security in financial services.

USAA, a FORTUNE 500 financial services provider that serves
members of the military and their families, has been an innovator in securing
authentication and financial transactions through a process that extends beyond
user passwords and security questions. The development and intellectual property
rights granted to Persistent stem from innovations that USAA uses to identify
and verify members, while also protecting their privacy.

Through this agreement,
Persistent will extend these technologies and address a growing market
opportunity for digital security products and solutions in thefinancial services industry. Persistent will
focus onauthentication and securitysolutions based on concepts such as
micro-trust, risk-aware, contextual, and personalization in conjunction with
technologies related to biometrics, risk modeling, and dynamic proofing.

Sudhir Kulkarni,
President Digital at Persistent Systems says, “Digital transactions in financial services are growing at
a rapid pace. This agreement is at the intersection of security anddigital transformationin financial services, and it brings
together USAA’s patented security technologies with ourproduct engineering DNAto strengthen our focus on the how of
digital.”

Gary
McAlum, USAA’s Chief Security Officer says, “The financial services industry is highly connected, and we want every
link in the chain to be strong from a security perspective. That’s why we’re
excited to work with Persistent Systems to see patented innovations we use
today developed into products that can benefit others in the financial sector.
Just like we say to our members, we are stronger together than we are
apart.”